


some killer queen you are

by lannisters



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Attempted Sexual Assault, Childhood Friends, Complicated Relationships, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Implied/Referenced Abortion, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Minor Alice Cooper/Hal Cooper, Pre-Canon, Rating May Change, Semi-Explicit sexual content, Underage Sex, i'll probably add more tags as i go on, messy complicated emotions, pretty anti-hal cooper, some seriously bad parenting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-01
Updated: 2018-06-30
Packaged: 2019-04-16 22:36:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14174847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lannisters/pseuds/lannisters
Summary: Alice has a lot of anger, boiling under her skin.She carries it with her, her near constant companion. She hides it well; most people would never know what goes on inside the head of sweet, innocent Alice Smith.But FP Jones has never been like most people.





	1. pretending to not feel alone

Alice was nine, the first time she met Forsythe Jones.

Her mother had screwed up royally and got them kicked out of her grandparent’s house. Their new place was nothing like Gram and Grandpa’s; it was cramped, the ugly miscoloured wallpaper was peeling, and the linoleum hadn’t been set right, leaving it bumpy and uneven in places. There were scorch marks all over it in the kitchen, little ones like from her mom’s cigarettes. She and her mom had to share the ratty old pull-out bed in the living room until she could save up enough money to buy a proper bed. The house didn’t smell like Gram’s cooking, it always stunk of her mom’s cigarettes and burnt toast.

Alice was sat in the miserable excuse for a garden, sulking, when someone came out of the back door of the house next door. She looked over. There was just a low chain-link fence separating their houses. Next door’s garden was even worse than hers. The grass was overgrown and yellow. There were weeds everywhere. Gram would have had a fit if she saw it.

There was a boy in next door’s garden. He was skinny, his hair dark and messy. He was wearing a t-shirt with holes in it.

And he was looking at her.

“Who’re you?”

“Alice.” She said and he walked up to the fence separating their yards.

“I’m Forsythe.”

She snorted. “That’s a weird name.”

He just shrugged, grinning a little. It annoyed her for some reason. She didn’t want to talk to him. She didn’t like the way he was looking at her, like she said something funny when she hadn’t. He was a stupid boy with a stupid name and stupid hair and stupid clothes.

But going back inside meant being around her mother while she smoked and cried on the phone to Daddy. Anything was better than that. So she glanced back at the boy, watching him for a beat. He wasn’t looking at her anymore. He seemed fascinated by something on the ground. That annoyed her too.

“What are you doing?” He didn’t answer. He didn’t even look up and Alice narrowed her eyes. “What are you looking at?”

“Ants.”

She blinked. “Ants?”

“Yeah.” He shrugged. “Ants are cool.”

Alice frowned, unsure if he was kidding or not. Grandpa was always making stupid jokes she didn’t understand. But he didn’t say anything. He just crouched down to get a closer look at some stupid bugs.

Just as she was about to call him stupid, he looked up and waved her over with a smile.

“They’ve got a dead bee. Probably carrying it back to their queen.”

“Their queen?”

“Yeah.” He grinned, still staring down at the ground like it was the most interesting thing he’d ever seen. “The queen rules over all the other ants. You didn’t know that?”

Alice didn’t answer. She _didn’t_ know that (but like hell if she was going to let him know that).

“Come look.”

She got to her feet maybe a little too quickly for someone pretending not to be interested. She crossed the yard to the fence and looked at him for a moment, still not trusting that he was serious, before she slowly crouched down. Alice squinted, not really sure what she was looking at. There were ants crawling all over the concrete ground, scurrying in a big long line back to what looked like their nest in the dirt. There was a whole group of them trying to get back to the nest with bits of a dead bee balanced precariously on their backs.

“Ants can carry fifty times their own body weight.” Forsythe told her before he helped nudge what looked like a mangled leg back onto a cluster of ants’ backs.

“Huh.” Alice muttered as she watched the stupid little bugs her grandmother would’ve gone ballistic over. She always used to yell whenever Alice left food out, paranoid that there might be bugs in her perfect kitchen. “Why d’you like bugs so much?”

“Dunno.” Forsythe shrugged. “They’re just cool, I guess.”

Then he looked at her, looking her over with more interest than before. Guess he’d been more interested in ants to notice her properly. “You’re Tommy Smith’s kid, huh? Sucks he got locked up. My Dad said he got caught for a stupid reason, like he was askin’ for it or somethin’.”

“What the hell do you know about it, _Forsythe_?” Alice stood up with a scowl, spitting his name with venom. “You don’t know anything so shut up!”

She almost kicked some dirt over his precious ants – that would teach him - but stopped herself at the last second. It wasn’t the ants’ fault he was a jerk. They were minding their own business, defiling a poor dead bee. So she just huffed and walked back inside the house, slamming the torn screen door behind her.

“Bye, Alice!” He yelled after her, laughing.

Alice stomped into the house, not bothering to wipe her dirty feet. She didn’t know why she was surprised to see her mother sat on the couch but seeing her out of the corner of her eye nearly startled her out of her skin. Her mother was staring at her with that far-away look in her eyes, ash from her cigarette littering the ground.

She shouldn’t have been surprised to see her there. It wasn’t as if the woman ever left the house. What was surprising was the way that her eyes narrowed when she noticed Alice stood in the room.

“You stay away from him, baby girl. Those Jones boys are nothin’ but bad news.” Her mother sneered, tapping her cigarette before she brought it to her stained red lips.

“Yeah, like we’re any better.” Alice spat back.

Her mother didn’t answer. She just settled back against the couch and stared off into nothing like she’d been doing before. It used to upset her, seeing her like that. Her grandparents tried to shield her from it but they weren’t always there to distract her with something shiny. So she had to learn how to not see. Alice turned away and pretended not to notice the new mark on her mother’s arm or the needle on the ground. She’d gotten good at pretending not to nothing things.

 

* * *

 

It wasn’t easy to avoid someone who lived less than a couple of feet away from you.

And he certainly didn’t make it easy for her.

He always seemed to be skulking around wherever she went, always lingering in the corner of her eye.

She thought maybe he was looking out for her, because they were neighbours or because of her dad, and it made her mad. She didn’t need some stupid boy looking out for her. So Alice pretended not to notice how he’d scare off any boy who tried to pick on her and put a frog in their math teacher’s briefcase after he made her cry.

He didn’t talk to her much at school – not that she’d let him - but would walk a few steps behind her once the bus had dropped them off. Sometimes she thought about slowing down and letting him walk beside her. But she never did.

She heard shouting from his house sometimes - his old man yelling at him about something or other - and figured it meant he could hear stuff from her house too. She dug her nails into her palms whenever her mother went into a screaming fit about something stupid, or hysterics about nothing at all, knowing that Forsythe Jones was on the other side of the fence, probably hearing every word.

If there was one thing she hated more than him looking out for her, it was the thought of him feeling _sorry_ for her.

“I’m gonna visit Daddy.” Her mother told her one day after school, when she was scarcely a few steps into the house. She’d been waiting for her, been watching her walking down the street with Forsythe trailing behind her from the window. “I’ll be gone a few days. You can look after yourself right? You’re a big girl now.”

Alice dumped her bag on the floor and frowned, trying to work out if she was joking or not.

“You’re leaving me here? What about Gram and Grandpa? Can’t I go stay with them?”

“We’re not welcome there remember?” Her mother sneered, her gaze turning hard as if it was _her_ fault. As if she was the reason they’d been practically thrown out on the street. Alice looked past her and saw that there was a bag on the counter. So she’d already packed and made up her mind. It wasn’t the first time her mother had left but they’d lived with her grandparents then. She hadn’t left her alone.

“Mom -” She started to say, a little shakily, but her mother waved her hand.

“You’ll be fine, baby. There’s food so you’re not gonna starve. If you run out, well -” Her mother sighed and dug into her pocket. She pulled out a couple of crumpled bills and handed them to her. Alice looked down at the couple of dollars in her hand, not knowing what she was supposed to do with it. The store was too far away for her to walk there and back with groceries. “This’ll last you a few days. If there’s trouble, call Uncle Bobby.”

“You can’t leave me by myself!” She cried, feeling the hot prickle of tears in the corners of her eyes, but it was too late. Her mother was already turning away, picking her bag off of the counter. She wouldn’t hear anything she’d have to say. She couldn’t tell her she was scared, that would only make her laugh at her. “Mom -”

“I’ll see you in a couple of days, baby girl.” Her mother said and then she was gone.

Alice rushed out of the house after her, shouting for her to come back. But she didn’t even seem to notice her.

Alice was still stood on the porch long after the car had disappeared down the road, her nails digging hard enough into her palm to draw blood. Pathetic little sobs burst out of her chest and tears streaked down uncontrollably her cheeks. She hadn’t cried like that since her grandparents kicked them out and she hated it. Hated _her._ She didn’t notice the door next door slowly creak open nor Forsythe stepping out onto the porch until he quietly called her name.

“Hey Alice.” Forsythe said, head down, hands in his pockets. He shuffled his feet before he snuck a peek at her. “You okay?”

She didn’t answer but he nodded like she had. “You want to stay here? My old man won’t care. We’ve got a pull-out couch you can sleep on.”

Alice didn’t answer, not because she didn’t want to. She didn’t answer because she was sure she’d only start crying again if she tried to speak. So she sniffed, wiped her cheeks with the backs of her hands, and nodded.

Forsythe didn’t say anything as she climbed the rotting wood railing that divided their front porches, he just held the door open for her and waited. She didn’t look as him as she walked into his house, noting that it wasn’t any nicer than her place. There was just more furniture. There were beer bottles and crushed cans scattered around the living room and kitchen; it reminded her a lot of when her father was still around.

His old man was out but his jacket was draped over the back of a tattered old armchair. Alice sniffed, wiping her cheeks again before she crossed over to it. She touched the faded leather and trailed her fingers down the familiar insignia she’d grown up looking at. She didn’t have many memories of her father – not pleasant ones, anyway – but she remembered his jacket.

“Your dad’s a Serpent too?” She asked, looking over her shoulder. Forsythe shook his head, told her it belonged to the old guy who lived in the house next door to her, and she looked back at the jacket, frowning. She hadn’t known that. That seemed like something she should have known. The old man – whose name she couldn’t even remember – had brought them meatloaf when they first moved in. She hadn’t understood why her mother had thrown it out. He hadn’t asked for anything in return. “Is… is that why you’re always so nice to me?”

“Nah.”

She looked back, scowling. “Then why are you?”

“Do I got to have a reason?”

“Well…” She bit her lip, embarrassed. “You should. ‘Cause I’m not very nice to you.”

He was smiling again, like she’d said something funny.

“So be nicer to me then.” He shrugged, like it was that simple.

Alice looked away, feeling like she was going to cry again. She didn’t really know what to do when people were nice to her. She had never had many friends. Her teachers always said she was _shy_ and _reserved_ on her report cards but that wasn’t it. She just never knew the right thing to say. She heard the floor creak behind her and glanced back, seeing Forsythe shuffling his feet again, frowning like he was worried he upset her. So she made herself smile.

“Okay.” She said, her smile watery. “Thanks, Forsythe.”

“FP.” He said. “My friends call me FP.”

Alice forgot all about her tears and smiled. _Friends._ She liked the sound of that.

 

* * *

 

It became something of a habit after that.

Whenever her mother left, she found herself in the house next door. The Jones’ door was always open. FP’s father never questioned it, never asked what she was doing there. He’d just look at her, grunt, and go back to drinking. And FP – he never turned her away, never let her thank him either. He gave up his room after the third time, taking the pull-out sofa instead.

After a few months, she found it easier to fall asleep in his bed than in her own.

 

* * *

 

It had been months – maybe seven or eight – since the first time she’d crashed at the Jones’. Her mother was gone, she hadn’t said where she was going this time. Alice didn’t really care either way. She’d been at a sleepover the night before at one of the girls from school’s house. They’d stayed up late, a whole group of them, whispering and swopping secrets. Someone had brought up first kisses and Alice had lied, said she’d been kissed before by a boy from the Northside.

It had been on her mind ever since.

She looked over at FP. He was sat on the ground beside the bed, flicking through a comic book he’d probably read a thousand times.

“You ever kissed anyone, FP?” She asked, watching his face closely. He blinked at first, then lifted his head, his face all scrunched up the way it did when he was confused.

“Have you?” He asked instead of answering.

“I -” She thought about lying, the way she did with the girls. It had been easy. They’d all believed her. Even when she’d stammered trying to come up with a name. But they weren’t like FP. They didn’t know her like he did. He’d know she was lying. “No.”

He nodded slowly then looked away, looking back at his comic book. He hadn’t answered her question. She rolled her eyes and sat up, shifting off of his bed to sit down next to him. Their knees knocked together and she grabbed the comic book from him, throwing it onto the bed beside her forgotten homework. He made a sound of protest that quickly died when she started leaning in.

“What are you doing?” His head jerked back, eyes wide.

“I wanna know what all the fuss is about.” She shrugged, like it was obvious. FP was looking at her like he was trying to work out if he was kidding or not – an expression she was familiar with – so she swallowed her nerves and leaned in to kiss him. She’d never thought about kissing him – or any boy – before but hearing all the other girls talk had made her feel like she was missing out. Like there was something wrong with her. It made her wonder why boys weren’t trying to kiss her. Why had no one ever tried before?

Her lips touched his and she immediately pulled back, leaping away like she’d been zapped. She sat back down next to him and fiddled with a loose thread on her shorts and huffed. She hadn’t known what to expect – some of the girls talked about fireworks and magic. They made it out to be something special. But Alice didn’t get was all the fuss was about.

FP was looking at her funny but she pretended not to notice.

 

* * *

 

Her father had been behind bars for coming up to eight years when her mother apparently decided that occasional visits either side of glass walls weren’t enough for her.

She started bringing home boyfriends. She called them that but Alice knew she was being a bit generous with the term. Most she saw once or twice and then never again. Some were nice – some freaked out when they stumbled through the door in the middle of the night, attached at the mouth to her mother, and saw a kid, while others smiled and gave her money for ice cream to get her out of the house. But mostly – most of them were awful.

There were a couple that stuck around, drank too much, and left bruises on her mother’s face that even ten tonnes of foundation couldn’t hide. They even got robbed by one of them once. Not that they had much to steal in the first place. And then there were those that looked at Alice overly long. The types that made her sit on their lap, called themselves her _uncle,_ and liked to try to touch her when her mother wasn’t around. She usually found herself sleeping at FP’s whenever one of those types were in the picture.

And then there was Lou.

He’d been around for a few months. He’d been her mother’s dealer at first, then when she’d run out of money she started paying him in different ways. He hung around the house during the day, drinking in front of the TV her mother’s last boyfriend bought for them. He was there even when her mother was at work, making it almost impossible to avoid him. Alice could always feel him watching her. It made her skin crawl.

“Get me a drink, wont’cha?” He yelled one afternoon. She’d barely been home ten minutes. She gritted her teeth and grabbed a beer from the fridge. She stalked over to where he was sat in the living room and thrust it out to him, hoping it would be enough. That he’d leave her alone. But instead of taking the beer, his fingers curled around her wrist, holding tight. His eyes ran over her in a way she was becoming increasingly familiar with. It made her feel sick. “How old are you now, Allie?”

She bristled. The only person who got away with calling her that was FP.

“Thirteen.” She gritted out and tried to tug her hand out of his grip. “Let go. I have homework.”

Lou grinned, showing off his disgusting crooked, yellow teeth. He was a skinny guy, his face gaunt and his hair thinning out, but he scared her more than any of the other assholes her mother had brought home.  

“Nah, I don’t think I will.” He drawled and lifted his other hand, keeping his eyes locked on hers. She jumped when she felt his fingers touch the back of her knee.

“Don’t.” She said, trying to sound tough but her voice cracked, giving her away. He held her wrist in a crushing grip as his other hand ran up the back of her leg, rough fingers brushing against her bare skin higher and higher and higher. She felt tears gathering in her eyes and she blinked them away, not wanting him to see. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.

“You’re a very pretty girl, lot like your mother ‘cept not batshit crazy.” His hand was under her skirt, running his fingers along the lace trimming of her cotton underwear. He paused, looking at her for a long time before his lips curved in a smirk. “You think I haven’t noticed the way you look at me? Pretty little Alice, just dying to be touched.” 

“Go to hell.” She spat and smashed the bottle in her hand into the side of his head. The glass smashed, going everywhere, and he yelled, his hand flying off of her leg to touch the side of his head. His fingers came away bloody. She thought the shock of it would make him let go but, if anything, it made him hold onto her wrist tighter. She was sure she could feel her bones crushing under his fingers.

“You little fucking bitch!” He yelled, slapping her hard across the face with his bloody hand. She stumbled from the force of it, would’ve fallen if not for his death grip on her wrist. He hit her again, harder than before, and she could taste blood, but he let go of her finally. She fell to the floor heavily, crying out, and he loomed over her. There was blood running down the side of his head and bits of glass sticking out of his skin. The sight was horrifying and all she could do was curl up on the ground, too terrified to move.

“Please – I’m sorry -”

“You think you can fuckin’ do that to me? To _me?_ You little bitch – I’ll show you –”

“No – no – I didn’t – I didn’t mean to, I _swear.”_

“Shut the fuck up! I’ll show you – this’ll teach you to -” He started tugging off his belt and Alice stared at him with mounting horror. Was he going to hit her with it or – or –

The front door burst open before Alice ever had to find out.

FP rushed in and her breath caught in the back of her throat at the sight of him. Never – not once in all the years she’d known him – had she ever been scared of FP, but seeing him rush into her house, holding a bat, with murder in his eyes, frightened her. She scrambled up, pressed her back against the wall, and made herself as small as possible.

Lou reacted slower than her. Maybe some of that glass got into his brain, made him stupid. He didn’t turn around, didn’t see FP until his bat collided with the back of his head. The same bat they used to play softball in the backyard with was suddenly a weapon, beating Lou to the ground. Lou was yelling something but she couldn’t make out the words. The bat came down again and whatever he was saying was cut off by a pained, garbled cry. Alice could only stare at him, frozen, as FP whaled on him again and again.

“Alice!” FP yelled, his eyes never leaving Lou. The bat came down again, hitting him across his shoulders when he tried to get up. There was blood, mixing in with the glass and the beer on the peeling linoleum floor. She tore her eyes off of Lou when FP yelled her name again. “Go! Get Leon!”

Alice scrambled to her feet, her legs seeming to move on their own accord. She stumbled out of the house, her legs nearly giving out a couple of times. Her heart was racing in her chest, her breathing coming in short, frantic breaths. She fell hard against the railing between her porch and old man Leon’s, her hands shaking so hard she could barely manage to pull herself over the waist-high bannister.  

The door opened before she could even knock. Leon stepped out of his house, the old man wearing his Serpent jacket, holding a gun half-hidden behind his back. His eyes darted around, brows drawn tightly together, before they settled on her. He crossed the deck in three long strides and touched her throbbing cheek carefully.

“Alice.” He said, his voice measured, controlled. “What happened?”

“Lou.” Alice broke. She slumped against the old man’s chest, bloody fingers clutching the familiar jacket as she sobbed. Not once in almost eight years had Alice wished for her father but right then, in that moment, she wanted him there more than anyone or anything. He would’ve killed Lou right then and there for even _looking_ at her the wrong way. The thought of what he’d do if he knew what Lou had done – nothing FP did with his bat could compare. And Alice would want him to do it. She’d want him to make the man wish he was dead. Make him wish he’d never been born.

“Alice, you go inside, alright? You’ll be safe there. Don’t worry, honey.”

Leon pulled back with a look of grim determination on his face. She stepped back and looked at the gun in his hand and knew what he was going to do.

“Serpents take care of their own.” He told her, a promise.

She went into his house, shut the door behind her, and pretended not to hear what happened next. She hid in Leon’s bathroom, back against the tile wall, legs drawn to her chest, with her hands clamped over her ears. That was how FP found her. He walked into the bathroom very slowly, his white shirt covered in splatters of blood, his knuckles torn and bleeding.

He crouched down in front of her and the hard look in his eyes softened, melting away when she looked at him.

“I’ll never let anyone hurt you again.” He said and she believed him.

 

* * *

 

After Lou, Alice vowed _never again._

She went to her grandparents, begged them to take her back. It shouldn’t have been much of a surprise to learn that it was never her who wasn’t welcome, just her mother. It always came down to her toxic, mess of a mother. They let her back into their perfect house, into her old bed, and she pretended that everything was alright. For months she still snuck out almost every night and fell asleep in FP’s bed, feeling safe with the knowledge that he was only a few feet away, in the other room. They never spoke about what happened but she caught him looking at her sometimes, looking at her like she was something fragile that needed protecting.

After Lou, she had made another vow.

She vowed that she would never end up like her mother, that she’d leave Riverdale someday and never come back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i started this waaaay back when, after the 'leave him.................................................... at home' scene and then totally forgot about it. then 2x17 happened and my falice heart died and went to heaven. this fic will diverge from canon later later on the line, so it doesn't fit into the show canon, tho it's filled with loads of my personal headcanons that i've deluded myself into thinking are real/legit canon.
> 
> the title of this fic is from the song 'rollercoaster' by bleachers and the chapter title is from 'vagabond' by misterwives. because i'm heavily inspired by music, song lyrics i use in the chapter titles are kind of like... the theme of the chapter i guess?
> 
> hope you enjoy! this is my first foray into this fandom, so please let me know what you think.


	2. watch as our young hearts fade

Her grandparents were different than most Southsiders. They lived right on the border, close enough to the Northside that they acted like they were above all the rest of them.

They kept their house perfect, their front garden was immaculately kept, and they swept anything unsavoury under the rug. They never talked about her mother. They never talked about the bruises on Alice’s face and wrist that took weeks to heal when she first moved back in. They called the years she’d lived in a drug den a stone’s throw away from a trailer park _unfortunate._

And they despised FP.

They called him that _Southside boy,_ the words dripping with disdain. As if they weren’t from the Southside too, as if _she_ wasn’t. They were all Southside trash, every last one of them stuck that side of the tracks.

Nothing was ever going to change that unless they did something about it. And that was exactly what Alice was going to do.

 

* * *

 

Hermione Rivera was everything Alice had ever wanted to be. She was beautiful and rich and sophisticated. No one would ever look at her and think she was _trash._

On the first day of high school, they were sat together. Alphabetical order and all that. Hermione started talking to a girl sat behind them about her summer vacation, talking about places and things Alice had never heard about. She was wearing perfume and clothes with flashy designer labels and Alice felt small and worthless sitting next to her.

The flats Alice’s grandmother had bought her for her first day were scuffed already from when she’d had to run for the bus. FP had pointed it out when he got on a couple of stops later and she’d ignored him for the rest of the journey. Her clothes had been a lucky find at Goodwill. Some last season outfit some Northsider had decided was trash.

Just like her.

“Miss Rivera, turn around and stop talking.” The teacher snapped and Hermione faced the front of the class with a heavy sigh.

After a while, Hermione glanced at her, looking her over like it was the first time she’d noticed her sitting there.

“I like your headband.” She said and Alice felt herself warm all over. She tempered down her smile and gestured towards the flashy silver bracelet on Hermione’s wrist.

“Thanks. I like your bracelet.” Alice said, deciding against blurting out _I like your everything._ That would be too uncool for words, she’d never live it down. Hermione touched her bracelet with a pleased sound and waved it in Alice’s face, showing off the sparkly charms that were hanging off of it.

“Daddy got it for me from New York. It’s _Tiffany’s._ ” She preened. Alice didn’t know who Tiffany was but there was no way in hell that she was going to ask. Hermione looked back at Alice with an arched brow, still fiddling with her bracelet with her perfect painted fingernails. “Have you ever been?”

“To New York?”

Hermione nodded.

“No, not yet.” Alice answered and Hermione’s grin spread. That was seemingly the right answer. The other girl spent the rest of the class telling her all about it, about all the places she would have to visit when she went and all the things she had to do.

Alice spent the rest of the next class, where she was sat next to some nobody, thinking about it. She imagined herself in New York the way Hermione Rivera did, flashing money around, buying whatever she wanted, being more than just _Southside trash._

At lunch she started walking towards where FP and her Southside friends were loitering on the grass, away from all the other kids, but stopped when she saw Hermione waving at her from the tables in the cafeteria. Alice paused, looking from Hermione to her Southside friends and then back.

All the other girls sat with Hermione were from the Northside. They were the types who had looked down their noses at her their whole life but suddenly, when Hermione was showing her interest, they were all smiles.

Alice adjusted her bag strap and sucked in a deep breath before she turned on her heel and walked over to where Hermione and her friends were sitting. The whole time she could feel eyes on her, watching her walk away from where they all thought she belonged. She’d show them.

“This is Alice.” Hermione said when she slid into the empty seat next to her. As if she hadn’t known all those girls her whole life.

“Hi.” Alice said and crossed her legs at the ankles, mirroring the way Hermione was sitting. The others girls smiled at her and started talking and Alice’s eyes looked past them to where FP was sat on the grass, staring at her. He nodded when she met her gaze, not glowering at her like the others were. She glanced away, looking back at Hermione, and pretended not to feel his eyes on her for the rest of lunch.

 

* * *

 

From then on, she sat at the front of the bus in the mornings.

She always got off the bus a stop early and walked the rest of the way, not wanting her friends to see her get off a bus from the Southside. The rest of them all stared at her from the bus as it drove away.

She never looked at FP and his friends when they’d climbed on a couple of stops after her in the morning. The first few times, she felt his eyes on her, probably wondering why she wasn’t sat at the back like usual, but she’d pretended not to notice.

After a while, he got the message.

 

* * *

 

“You turning into a Northsider now?” FP asked the next time she appeared at his house late one night, bag in hand. She hadn’t been there in weeks but it had been a rough night. Her grandparents were breathing down her neck to get invited to some stupid club at school and she needed a break. He was leaning against the door, chewing gum with his mouth open, the way he knew she hated, acting like he wasn’t going to let her in.

She rolled her eyes, pushing past him.

“Don’t be stupid.”

“I don’t know, Allie.” FP said as he followed her into his bedroom. He watched her dump her bag on his bed with the start of a smirk forming on his lips. He gestured to her clothes – a pretty skirt Hermione had given her and a new blouse she’d begged her grandmother to buy. “You’re sitting with them now, dressing like them. Next thing you’ll be talkin’ like them and lookin’ down your nose at the rest of us. You’ll start thinking you’re too good for us or something, like you’re not from the Southside too.”

He was only half-teasing her, she realised. She’d hit a nerve, hurt his precious Southside pride.

There was a loud bang before she could respond from next door, from her mother’s house. She heard shouting and sobbing and a door slammed. The sort of thing she’d grown up listening to. Alice sat down on the edge of FP’s bed, listening to the sound of her mother’s muffled sobbing. It was the closest she’d come to hearing her voice in months. Alice kicked off her stupid scuffed flats so she could hug her knees to her chest.

“Do you think I _want_ to be from here? I fucking hate this town. I can’t wait to get out of here and never come back.” She snapped and FP frowned, his stupid smirk slipping off of his face. She ducked her head, resting her chin on her knees. “I’ll never leave if I keep hanging around Southside trash.”

“Southside _trash?”_ He laughed once, without humour. His eyes were full of disbelief, his jaw clenching as he looked at her. She looked at the floor instead. “Jesus, Alice, you’re already sounding like one of them.”

Alice didn’t answer. She didn’t know what he wanted her to say.

Eventually he sighed, dragged a hand down his face, and sat down beside her on his bed. For a long time they sat there in silence, listening to the sound of her mother’s voice through the walls, crying down the phone to someone. Her father, maybe. If he even still took her calls. Alice didn’t care – she _didn’t_ – but hearing her like that brought back a wave of messy, complicated emotions she hadn’t had to deal with in a long time. 

“There are worse things than being from the Southside.” FP said with a weary edge to his voice. She snuck a glance at him and saw that he was staring ahead, his face all scrunched up like he was thinking real hard about something. “Least the people here… they care about their own. They have each other’s backs. Northsiders… Northsiders just care ‘bout themselves.”

She thought that was a little rich, considering she’d seen him looking awfully chummy with Fred Andrews at lunch. But maybe – she thought – maybe he wasn’t just talking to her. Maybe he was talking to himself a little as well. Reminding himself that the tracks that lay between the north and south side of town weren’t just there for a train that no longer run. They were there for a reason.

“Maybe.” Alice shrugged, too sick to death of it all to argue with him. She’d had this argument one too many times. He blinked, looking a little thrown that she’d giving in so easily, and she cracked a smile. “But it’s worth a shot, right?”

“Maybe.” FP sighed, pulling his legs up to his chest to mirror the way she was sat. The bed dipped, making her slump into his side. He wrapped one arm around her shoulders to steady her and looked at her like he expected her to push him away. But she didn’t mind. She leaned her head against his shoulder and he sighed again. “Just be careful, Allie. Northsiders – they aren’t like us.”

 _Good,_ Alice thought.

 

* * *

 

Half-way through sophomore year, Hermione came back from winter break with a boyfriend back in New York.

“Adrian gave me this.” She told them at lunch, wiggling her fingers in Alice’s face, showing off the fancy new ring on her right hand. It was silver with a heart made of little tiny diamonds. Alice smiled thinly and went back to eating her sandwich. It was the fifth time she’d shown her that day. She was finding it harder and harder to pretend she cared. “Isn’t it gorgeous? It’s a promise ring.”

“A what?” Pamela snorted and Hermione’s beaming grin turned hard, icy within an instant.

“It’s to show that we’ll be true to each other, while we’re apart.”

“I think it’s sweet.” Mary said from where she was sat at the end of the table, reading. She was the only one who probably meant it. She was the only half-way decent one in the group. But Hermione rolled her eyes and sat her hands back on her lap primly.

“Not that _I_ need it. The boys here are so… immature.” Hermione added a disgusted noise for good measure, as if she hadn’t been crushing hard on Hiram Lodge just a few weeks ago. “Nothing at all like my Adrian.”

“I don’t know,” Pamela snickered. “FP Jones is pretty cute.”

“The _Southsider?”_ Hermione shrilled and some of the other girls laughed, making Pamela blush. “You can’t be serious.”

Alice felt herself frown, though she wasn’t really sure why. She followed Pamela’s gaze and found herself looking at FP, leaning against the wall outside the cafeteria, talking to Mustang and a couple other older Southside boys. She wrinkled her nose. _Cute_ had never been a word she’d use to describe FP Jones. He’d shot up like a bean in the last couple of months, leaving him skinny with too long arms and too long legs. He’d started growing his hair out too. It was always wet with too much gel and falling in his face. She would’ve told him it looked stupid but they hadn’t talked in a while… not in months.

FP looked over, as if sensing her gaze, and she thought she saw surprise register on his face. Then he smiled that stupid, smug smile that made her roll her eyes.

“Oh my God.” Pamela giggled, hiding her bright red cheeks behind her hands. “He’s looking over here! Alice, quit staring!”

Hermione’s lip curled in disgust and she grabbed Alice’s hand, digging her nails in just enough to pull her attention back.

“No offense, Alice, but your friend FP is Southside trash.” The words were calculated, chosen carefully. They were supposed to hurt. Alice blinked, wondering what the hell she’d done to earn Hermione’s ire when _Pamela_ was the one who pissed her off, and jerked her hand from the other girl’s grip. There were little pink indents on the back of her hand from Hermione’s plastic nails.

“He’s not my friend.” She spat, but Hermione smiled, all knowing and smug.

“Oh _come on,_ Alice. I’m not _blind._ We’ve all seen the way he looks at you. And we’ve all heard the rumours. Everyone says it was him who put your name on the list.”

Right, the list. It all made sense now.

Hermione had been quietly seething ever since the list went around and Alice’s name was on it and not hers. The list was disgusting, not to mention demeaning as hell. It was something stupid the boys had passed around and thought the girls wouldn’t find out about. Alice’s name was on it twice. Best lips. Best tits. Alice shook her head, a bitter laugh escaping her lips.

She looked back at him, watched him drag his fingers through his dark hair and say something that made Mustang laugh, and _knew._ There was no way – _no way in hell_ that FP wrote that about her.

No matter how much she ignored him, how much of a bitch she was, FP Jones would never do that to her.

“Whatever.” Alice muttered and Hermione grinned, looking like the cat who caught the canary. Whether she knew it or not, Alice had just given her one more thing for her to throw back in her face later.

 

* * *

 

“Hermione’s a bitch.” Mary said one day after she found Alice sobbing in the toilets.

Hermione had said something cruel, let slip one of Alice’s dirty little secrets in front of everyone. _You’d know all about prison, wouldn’t you Alice?_ The other girl had said, her painted lips curled, her eyes sparkling with amusement. She’d touched her fingers to her lips when the other girls gasped, feigning shock. Alice had had to sit there all through lunch, biting the inside of her lip, sitting on her hands to stop herself from throttling her.

“She’s just got a stick up her ass that Hiram Lodge talked to you and not her.” Mary said from the other side of the toilet door. Alice could see her red shoes under the door and the flowers she’d painted on the toes with Wite-out in art class.

“Seriously? That’s still going on?” Alice laughed wetly, wiping away the mess her tears had made of her mascara.

“Unfortunately.” Mary muttered.

Alice sniffed, wiping her nose with the back of her hand, and unlocked the door. Mary pushed open the stall door with a kind smile and handed her some tissues. Alice smiled gratefully and blew her nose, feeling stupid for crying over something as little as Hermione Rivera being a bitch. She was made of stronger stuff than that. And by that point, the other girl’s words shouldn’t bother her anymore.

“Screw her. Seriously. She’s _awful._ You shouldn’t have to put up with her shit.”

Alice smiled wearily. Mary was probably the only real friend she had from the Northside. She was kind; she gave her friendship willingly, never asked for anything in return. But she didn’t get it. Without Hermione, Alice would be dumped back with the Southsiders. She wasn’t an idiot, she knew the other girls – the ones she’d called friends for years – only accepted her because Hermione said so. Sure, she could sit with Mary, but without Hermione, she’d go back to being an outsider. She’d go right back to being Southside trash.

So Alice painted a bright smile on her face and laughed.

“Don’t be silly, Mary. _Whatever_ would we do without Hermione?” She said overly cheerfully and stepped around her to stand in front of the mirror. She reapplied her lipstick, fixed her hair, and pretended she didn’t notice the redhead’s worried eyes watching her every move.

 

* * *

 

The way she saw it, there were only two ways she was going to get the hell out of Riverdale.

She could do what her grandparents wanted - marry a nice boy from the Northside and hope that he had enough money and ambition to want to leave town. Or she could get a scholarship from somewhere – from literally _any college_ that would take her – and be her own goddamn meal ticket.

Her teachers wrote in her report cards that she was _unusually focused_ for a fifteen year old girl. They didn’t know the half of it.

 

* * *

 

She went out on a date with a boy from her math class. He had seemed nice enough.

It was her first proper date. Hermione picked out her outfit, did her make-up, and told her to make sure she asked to go steady before letting him touch her. _Don’t want people to think you’re a slut right, Alice?_

The words rung in her head as she sat at Pop’s, waiting for him to turn up. He was late and she could see some guys from her old neighbourhood in the parking lot, standing by their bikes, wearing their Serpent jackets with pride. It made a lot of people in the diner look nervous.

When her date did eventually turn up, he stormed in, red in the face.

“Can you believe it?” He demanded as he slid into the booth opposite her. “ _Serpents!_ Here!”

Alice blinked, following his gaze as he looked out to the parking lot. One of the guys lifted his hand in a wave when he saw her looking. She didn’t wave back. He used to live down the street from her. He’d been one of the guys Leon called to help deal with Lou. The guy had literally helped carry a dead body from her living room but she couldn’t even wave back at him because then her date would know. He’d see her for what she really was.

“I hope someone calls the Sheriff.” Alice found herself saying. The words tasted like ash in her mouth.

 

* * *

 

Sometimes, Alice thought she was going to lose her fucking mind.

She was all alone in a world that couldn’t care less. She didn’t know if her own mother was alive or dead. She hadn’t seen her in three years. And she hadn’t seen her father – who was little more than a distant memory at that point - in almost ten. Her grandparents didn’t know her; they didn’t care to as long as she pretended to be their perfect little girl, everything her mother was not.

She thought sometimes that she hated her friends, hated their sneers and their fake smiles and how goddamn vindictive Hermione could be when she wanted to, and how she’d spent _years_ biting her tongue and playing nice just to be accepted. There were scars on her palms from where she’d dug her nails in, the only thing she could do sometimes to stop herself from cracking.

Even Mary – sweet, kind, wonderful Mary – twisted something inside of her. Mary had the life she’d always dreamed of. Two parents, a nice house in the suburbs with a picket fence, and a dog. While Mary had been raised by loving parents, Alice had been thrown out into the world and forced to figure it out for herself. And it was _exhausting._

She wanted what Mary had so badly it tore her up inside and made her push her away, the one real friend she had.

Sometimes, she thought FP saw all of that. He’d always seen too much, known her better than anyone else. Sometimes she would look behind her during class and see him watching her, staring at her like she was a puzzle he was trying to work out. It scared her, thinking he saw right through her, through all her bullshit, right down to her twisted, rotten core.

Alice had a lot of anger, boiling under her skin. She carried it with her, her near constant companion. She hid it well; most people would never know what went on inside the head of sweet, innocent Alice Smith. But FP Jones had never been like _most people._

And it scared the hell out of her.

 

* * *

 

Right before the end of sophomore year, posters went up for Vixens’ tryouts.

Naturally, Hermione talked her into trying out with her.

In hindsight, it was pretty ironic that the place where Alice Smith finally cracked was at a prep rally practice.

The River Vixens had always been on her list of things to accomplish eventually. If she was in with the Vixens, she was in for good. She wouldn’t need to rely on Hermione Rivera’s good graces and social standing anymore. But there was just one problem – the squad’s captain was the spawn of Satan herself.

Penelope had always been the worst of the worst, looking down at everyone, Northsiders and Southsiders alike. The social divisions she saw ran deeper – she saw _new money, old money,_ and _everyone else._ She was a senior at least, so they wouldn’t have to put up with her for much longer.

But still, Alice got ready for try-outs carefully, not wanting to bring any unnecessary attention to herself. She made sure her lips were lined perfectly and that not a single bleached blonde hair was out of place. Her grandmother would have a fit if she saw her in the tight top, short skirt cheerleading ensemble but that was all part of the appeal.

She liked uniform – well, the way the uniform made her look. The skirt made her legs look longer than they were and the colour suited her skin. What she didn’t like was the top. She wouldn’t put it past Penelope to have purposefully given her a shirt that was too small, to make some snide comment about her waistline.

The whole football team was sitting on the bleachers, there to watch the try-outs.

“Hey, Alice? Good luck.” Hal Cooper called out to her as she walked into the gym, surprising her. They’d never really talked before. But she made sure to flash her winning smile at him and he gave her a thumbs up. Hermione was gaping at her and it made her practically skip the last few steps to where everyone was gathered. She knew, from the way that Hermione was looking at her, that she’d be grilled for answers later, but Alice didn’t know what to say. What was there to say?

Alice glanced back, a little bemused to find Hal still looking at her, grinning. Everyone knew Hal. He was good-looking, he was on the football team and he was from a nice family, lived in the nice part of town. He was the sort of guy her grandparents dreamed about her marrying someday.

“Alice Smith.” Penelope smiled thinly at her, calling her out. Penelope was like a reptile, coldblooded, and she never smiled properly, probably to hide her no doubt forked tongue. Everyone turned to look at her as she stepped up. “Why don’t you go first? We’ve got a special song lined up just for you.”

Alice frowned, not trusting the other girl’s smile for a single second. But she wanted to join the Vixens, and in order to join she had to somehow get on Penelope’s good side, so she just smiled and grabbed some pompoms off of the ground. Hermione smiled, actually wished her good luck, and stood off to the side with the others, leaving Alice alone in the middle of the gym.

The music started playing, at first just some upbeat trumpeting, and she started working through the short routine she’d put together with Hermione. She didn’t notice the girls behind Penelope hiding smiles behind their hands or the vicious gleam in Penelope’s eyes. She was too focused on trying to impress them with the mishmash of moves she’d picked up from watching the Vixens at last week’s football game.

Then the music started to actually play. Alice slowed as the words settled in.

Jailhouse Rock. They were playing Jailhouse fucking Rock.

Alice turned, her hands curling into tight fists around her pompoms, and saw Penelope’s smug grin.

“What the hell is this?” She shouted over the music.

“Like we’d actually let Southside trash like you join the Vixens.” Penelope said.

“Careful, Penelope.” One of the girls beside her snickered. “Her convict Daddy might try kill you.”

The other girls were laughing. Laughing _at_ her. That was worse than any stupid song. Alice looked at them – looked at Hermione – and felt something inside her snap at the sight of her friend laughing along with them. She could take Penelope, she’d always known the other girl thought of her as little more than dirt under her shoe. But Hermione? There was a lot of ugliness about Hermione Rivera, a nasty streak in her that Alice had seen more than her fair share of, but she’d always thought they were friends.

“Fuck this.” Alice hissed and threw down the stupid pompoms. “And fuck you.”

Nothing had ever given her more satisfaction than slapping Penelope hard across the face and watching her topple to the ground. Her cronies fluttered around her uselessly, fighting to be the one who got to help her up.

Alice smirked, flexed her fingers, and walked out of the gym listening to the sound of the coldblooded wench cursing her.

She thought she heard Hal Cooper calling her name but she didn’t stick around long enough to find out.

She was done trying to please people who she would never be good enough for.

If they thought she was Southside trash, then that was exactly what she was going to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> poor alice. but at least they didn't they didn't pour pig's blood all over her like in carrie. that was something i considered (i wouldn't put it past penelope blossom to pull that kind of shit).
> 
> the song i referenced was 'jailhouse rock' by elvis presley and the chapter title lyrics are from 'waves' by dean lewis.
> 
> thanks so much for all the love and support, i was really blown away by the response the first chapter got. hope you like this one as well!


	3. heart made of glass, my mind of stone

_Condemned._

Alice had lost track of how long she’d been standing there, staring at the word. The letters were starting to swirl, losing any meaning whatsoever. She knew what it meant, she wasn’t stupid, but she didn’t  _understand._

The notice was red, the letters bold and black and underlined, hammered into the front door with a rusty old nail. There were cracks around it, the ancient wooden door splintered, the decades’ old paint flaking. It was in the same spot her grandmother would’ve hung a wreath at Christmastime. That wasn’t something her mother had ever done. Go figure, Alice thought, the first and only thing to be put up on her front door was a condemned notice. It was fitting, if nothing else.

Alice ripped the notice off the door, crumpling it into a ball in her fist.

She fished her key out of her pocket and unlocked the door. She kicked it open and tossed the crumpled notice onto the floor. It was still her house. No matter what some stupid piece of paper said.

It had been a long time since she’d stepped foot inside her old home. Years. It was just as depressing as she remembered. The ugly wallpaper, the peeling linoleum, the scorch marks in the kitchen, and the ratty old furniture – nothing had changed. The smell hit her the hardest – burnt toast and dust and cigarettes. She’d forgotten about the smell.

There was broken glass all over the kitchen floor, more scorch marks than she remembered. There was also a nasty, rotten smell coming from the fridge that she had no interest in investigating.

The armchair was gone. The space where it had been was empty. There was a patch of brown on the threadbare rug beside it, a stain no amount of scrubbing ever got out. Alice didn’t let her gaze linger on that for long. Just being in that house brought on a slew of bad memories, the last thing she needed was to start thinking about something she’d kept locked away for years.

She stomped through the house to the tiny room that had once been hers. Everything was the same. She hadn’t expected that. The bed was still made up with pale purple butterfly sheets, a fluffy blanket she used to love draped across it. Her pink jewellery box with the dancing ballerina was exactly where she’d left it when she’d left the house, after picking it clean of what little jewellery she’d had. The door to her tiny closet was open, some of her clothes still hanging off of wire coat hangers. The marks on the wall from where she’d taken her own height were still there. She had been so small the last time she’d done it. So young.

Alice sat down on the edge of her old bed, her eyes smarting with tears. Being there took her back, reminded her of all the things she had tried so desperately to forget. It hadn’t changed. None of it. She wondered if her mother had even noticed she was gone or if she had kept everything the same in the hope that she’d come back someday.

At the end of the day, as much as she hated it, as much as she tried to deny it, this was a part of her. An ugly, shameful part of her. No matter what she did, she would always be the girl who grew up on the Southside, whose old man was in prison, whose mother was a junkie, whose house was fucking  _condemned._

With a huff, she pushed herself onto her feet and stalked across the hall into her mother’s room. Unlike hers, it had been picked clean. No clothes in the dresser, no sheets on the bed. Even the picture of her father that used to sit on the bedside table was gone. It was like she’d never even been there at all.

But there were little things. Little reminders. Like the scratches on the floor from her mother’s nails from a night Alice had nightmares about for years and the dent in the wall beside the door from a blow she’d only just managed to duck out of the way from and the cracked coral lamp on the bedside table. Little things that reminded her of why the fuck Alice had left.

She didn’t know why she had come back or what she had been looking for. A moment of weakness had led her there. A moment of wishing – stupidly – for her mother.

She should have known better.

Alice grabbed the lamp off the bedside table and hurled it across the room. She took a small shred of pleasure out of the way it shattered against the wall. She’d always hated that lamp. It was the one thing of Lou’s her mother had held onto all those years. Her lips twitched in a bitter smile at the tear she’d made in the ugly green wallpaper and the mess she’d made. The moment didn’t last though. The tears she’d fought so hard against were coming back and she didn’t know if she could stop them this time.

She sucked in a sharp, shaky breath and a sob rattled her, tears threatening to escape her tightly squeezed eyes.

Alice startled at the sound of footsteps behind her. She turned, clutching her throat in fright, and half expected, half hoped to see her mother. Instead, she found old Leon leaned against the doorframe, Serpent jacket slung over his shoulder, looking at her with a frown on his wizen face.

“Sorry.” He said, holding up his hands in a pacifying gesture. “Heard noise and thought it was someone breakin’ in.”

His gun was tucked into the waistband of his pants, half hidden behind his leather jacket.

“Where is she? My mom – where’d she go? What happened? Why’s this place condemned?” Alice demanded, pleasantries be damned. She angrily scrubbed away the few tears that had escaped with the backs of her hands and stalked over to Leon. If anyone knew what was going on, it would be Leon. He knew everyone’s business. There was that, and the walls between their houses were thinner than paper.

“Far as I know, she skipped town.” Leon sighed heavily, looking so much older than the last time she’d seen him. His hair – at least, what was left of it – was more white than grey. “Lost her cleanin’ job so the lights – the water – the gas – all got turned off. Guess that was good enough reason for them to condemn it.”

“Skipped town?” Alice repeated slowly, eyebrow raised in disbelief. “Where the hell would she go without any money?”

Leon shrugged. “Heard your Daddy was gettin’ out soon. Guess she went to see him.”

“’Course she did.” Alice huffed, crossing her arms over her chest. “Still hasn’t gotten it through her thick skull that he’s  _never_ fucking getting out.”

“Sorry, kid,” Leon said and he probably meant it too. But Alice was too pissed off to take anyone’s pity. “You hungry? Just ‘bout to heat up last night’s meatballs for me and FP. Plenty to go ‘round. Not that the kid’s gonna be eating anytime soon – was still puking his guts up last time I saw him.”

“No. Thank you.” Alice said brusquely, brushing past him. She was almost at the door when his words caught up with her. She whirled around, frowning. “FP? Why’s -”

“He’s staying with me,” Leon said, answering her unasked question. He pushed off of the doorframe and started towards her, hands in his pockets. “His old man kicked him out last week. Said I’d let him crash with me ‘til he found a place of his own.”

Alice blinked. She hadn’t known that. But why would she know that? It wasn’t as if they talked anymore.

She dropped her head, keeping her gaze fixed on her hands as she absently twisted the ring on her index finger. A gift from Hermione she’d nearly tossed into Sweetwater River. The only reason she hadn’t was because she hadn’t been able to get the damn thing off.

“Is he… is he okay?” She eventually asked, ashamed that it was something she had to ask at all.

“Not really, no.” Leon replied, never one to sugar-coat things. “But the Serpents – they’ll be good for him. They were for me. They were for you.”

He looked at her when he said that. Looked at her right in the eye and took her right back to that godawful day she’d tried so hard to forget.  _Serpents take care of their own._ A promise, yes. But also a debt. Serpents took care of their own – but she wasn’t a Serpent, not yet at least. She’d always been expected to join. Every member of her father’s family – every person she had avoided for as long as she could remember – wore the Serpent jacket proudly. And there was no escaping family, right?

“What are you trying to say, Leon?” Alice asked, acid dripping off of her tongue, pretending she didn’t know.

“All I’m sayin’ is, you’ve got family here. Not just your grandparents. Good people who want you to come home.”

So her home was the Southside. Her home was a condemned, abandoned shithole. Her home was with a bunch of thugs. Her  _home_  – where she  _belonged._ Alice scoffed, anger and bitterness rushing through her, and beneath it all, was shame, twisting like a rusty knife in her gut. She’d never bought much into religion. She didn’t go to church anymore, no matter how much her grandmother insisted. She’d never thought much about heaven. But she knew hell. Hell was this town and she was getting out the first chance she got.

“They’re not my family. This isn’t my home. I’m leaving – I’m getting the fuck out -” She hated that the words didn’t quite ring true.

“This is where you belong. People like us – we live and die in this town.”

Not so long ago, she would have told him to go to hell. But the words got caught in her throat when her gaze shifted to the jacket slung over his shoulder. Her Daddy’s jacket. She remembered pressing her face into the soft old leather, the smell of cigarette smoke and her father’s aftershave. Seeing that jacket used to make her feel safe.

Without another word, Alice threw the front door open, blinking tears from her eyes, and let it slam shut behind her.

 

* * *

 

 

The next time she saw FP, he had two black eyes, a split lip, and he was walking with a limp, but he was wearing a Serpent jacket proudly on his back.

The other kids – the Northside kids – stared at him in the halls. They whispered when his back was turned, terrified by the rumours they’d heard about the Serpents.  _Gangbangers. Criminals. Murderers._ They were afraid of him. Even Clifford fuckhead Blossom moved out of FP’s way when he was walking down the corridor, his pasty face even paler than usual.

No one called him Southside trash anymore. They were all too scared to.

The sweet little Alice Smith everyone thought they had pegged would’ve pretended to be scared of him too. She would have said all the things she was expected to say about the boy she’d grown up with – the closest thing she’d ever had to a real family - and hated herself for it. But Alice – the  _real_ Alice - she was sick to goddamn death of it all. She didn't say a word.

Hermione and the others laughed a little too loud at lunch and whispered behind her back and Penelope looked at her with such venom that she was supposed her skin hadn’t broken out in scales by now.

Mary was the only one who cared, the only real friend she had. Mary – who stared overly long at Fred Andrews – didn’t say a word whenever she caught Alice looking at FP. She just smiled, understanding, a secret shared just between the two of them.

 

* * *

 

Alice stood outside the White Wyrm, wondering what the fuck she was doing there.

It wasn't like she'd never been there before. Hell, she'd probably spent half her infancy within those walls. It was where her father had spent the most of his time before he got locked up. The Wyrm had probably been more his home than the trailer she'd spent the first years of her life in; drunks, thugs, and vagrants had been his company of choice. And all three congregated within the Wyrm like it was their goddamn Holy Land. Her mother had even worked there once, that was how they met. Serving drinks at sixteen, married and pregnant at seventeen. A love story for the ages.

She supposed the Wyrm might have been familiar to her once. Comforting. She thought - maybe - seeing it might trigger something in her, remind of her better times. The way the smell of the cheap pharmacy brand perfume her mother wore did. Just like the smell of tobacco and leather and motor oil would always make her remember her father and memories of little hands clinging to his jacket, pleading for him not to go.

But there was nothing. It was just another shitty bar in an equally shitty part of town.

There were three Serpents leaning against the wall to the side of the door, smoking. They were young enough not to recognise her. The tallest one, who had the beginnings of a patchy beard sprouting on his chin, was watching her with interest. His eyes dragged down her frame in a manner that made her nose wrinkle in disgust. She ignored them as she forced herself to move, keeping her gaze on the ground as she stomped across the gravel parking lot.

"Hey Blondie." The Serpent hollered, catching her arm as she reached for the door. "Want a hit?"

Up close, she realised it wasn't cigarettes they were smoking.

"No, thank you." She gritted out, shaking off his arm. As much as she wanted to tell him to fuck off, her grandmother had brought her up to be polite. So she said nothing when one of the other Serpents mocked her prissy tone, just rolled her eyes. The three men's laughter followed her into the Wyrm.

Almost at once, she felt out of place.

This place - the Wyrm - was the Southside. It was the Serpents. She should have felt at home there. But instead she stood out like a sore thumb with her pretty blonde hair and distinct lack of leather. Even after trading out her Northsider clothes with something that felt a little more like home, she stuck out. People stared as she headed towards the bar; she kept her chin up, refused to look at them. Too much of a Northsider for the Southside and too tainted by Southside trash to ever be a Northsider - no matter what she did, she could never win.

She saw FP before he saw her. He was leaning against the bar, too big jacket hanging off his lanky frame. He looked different here. More confident, more relaxed than he ever had at school or under his old man's roof. Alice felt something twist inside her at the thought. She wasn't sure what it was - jealousy, maybe, that he'd found a place when she hadn't. But there was something else - something that cut deep, almost like... betrayal. Though she would never admit it, she had always been a little selfish when it came to FP, she'd always assume that when she walked away from Riverdale, he'd follow. She never thought he'd carve out a place for himself here. It hurt, more than she would ever admit, to think that - even after all she had done to cut him from her life.

FP was talking to a girl with heavy, smudged black eyeliner and a cigarette hanging from her painted red lips. Her clothes, her hair - it all screamed Southside. She had her hand on FP's arm, chest pushed forward, head thrown back, laughing at something he'd said. Alice paused, a nasty quip already on the tip of her tongue. She was one of those girls then. The girls who went from Serpent to Serpent until - usually - they got knocked up and ended up with a ring and lot in Sunnyside trailer park. Her mother had been that girl once. It might have been Alice's life too, if things had been different.

Alice was almost ready to turn away, to give up on whatever the hell this had been, when FP suddenly turned and caught sight of her. The look of shock and bewilderment on his face - like this was the last place he'd ever expect to see her - shouldn't have been sad. But it was. Not so long ago, he never would have looked at her like that. Her friend would've been happy to see her. She felt like there was a brick on her chest, a heavy weight pressing down on her. It took every last shred of her nerve not to turn tail and run.

"Allie." Her old nickname seemed to fall from his lips on instinct.  The second he said it he seemed to come back to himself; he straightened and pushed back his hair, swallowing. The girl beside him looked Alice over, something irritated and suspicious in the curl of her lip and the narrowing of her eyes. FP didn't seem to notice. His wide, shifty eyes never left Alice. "Uh - what - what are you doing here?"

"Looking for you." The smirk that followed came easily enough. She was good at pretending. 

The corner of his lip lifted, a huff escaping him. "Yeah? And why's that?"

FP was good at pretending too. Except he wore cockiness and bravado instead of sunny smiles and barbed words. Living the lives they'd had, it'd made liars out of them both. The girl beside him rolled her eyes and clacked away on six-inch heels. Alice watched her drape herself over the back of some Serpent sat down watching last night's football game, instantly commanding his attention. Alice could respect her hustle, if nothing else.

"So you joined the Serpents then?" Alice's gaze slid back to him, her eyes narrowing. When he said nothing, just shrugged one shoulder, a harsh, humourless laugh escaped her lips. "Well, when you get locked up maybe they'll let you share a cell with my Dad. You can say 'hi' to him for me."

"You're a real piece of work, you know that?"

FP pushed away with the bar, rolling his eyes. He made sure to knock her shoulder when he stalked past her. Not hard, but enough to make her stumble. Enough to piss her off. She whirled around, spluttering, and followed him. She spotted old Leon and a couple more familiar faces but she refused to smile when they looked her way.

It was difficult to keep up with FP and his stupidly long legs but she refused to run after him. It wasn't like he was going to leave her behind, no matter how pissed he was.

And then there he was, leaning against the wall by the dumpsters out the back of the Wyrm, when she finally caught up to him. 

FP was fumbling in his pocket for a lighter, a cigarette tucked behind his ear. To anyone else, it would look like he didn't care. That this was just a casual chat between old friends. But she knew him better than that. She could see the tension in his shoulders and the anger in the way that his jaw was set. And she could see the faint tremble in his hands when he brought a scuffed old lighter to his lips to light his cigarette.

"So what, Allie?" He said, eyes dark and narrowed at her. "You came all this way just to bust my balls?" 

Her first instinct was to scoff. "No, of course -"

"No? Then what the hell was that? Don't tell me you're here out of the goodness of your heart."

Wasn't that the question of the day. She had no idea why she'd come. Some parts of it, maybe, had to do with Mary - at lunch she'd been staring at Fred Andrews again when she'd suddenly commented on FP's absence. Alice hadn't noticed. It had only been when Mary had mentioned it that she realised she hadn't seen him at school all week, hadn't seen that telltale jacket in the halls, hadn't looked up during class and caught him looking her way. But there was more to it than that. She just didn't know what it was.

"Well?" He snapped, blowing smoke out of the corner of his mouth. She was downwind, the smell made her nose wrinkle. 

"I heard your Dad kicked you out." Alice tried again, softer this time.

"And here I was thinking you didn't care anymore. I'm touched, Allie." His tone was harsh, sarcastic as all hell. She took a step back, crossing her arms over her chest. She probably deserved it after the way she'd treated him. Didn't mean it didn't hurt though. FP looked at her again, seeing something in her face that made him soften his hard mask just a little. "Yeah, he kicked me out. Told me to go to hell."

"Sorry." Was all she could think to say, lips twisting ruefully. "That sucks." FP shrugged, kicking a pebble with the tip of his boot.  

"Not like I wasn't expectin' it. He never made it a secret that he didn't want me around. But after -" He sighed, taking a drag of his cigarette before he continued. The smoke hung in the air between them before the light breeze carried it away. "I had nowhere to go so I went to Leon's. He took me in, told me there was a place with the Serpents if I wanted it."

"With drug dealers, criminals -" She started to say but he shook his head.

"That's just Northsider bullshit and you know it. The Serpents are a family. Surely you, of all people, understand wanting that."

Alice took another step back.

Family. What a weird, twisted thing that was for them both. Her mother, a washed up junkie. Her father, barely more than a distant memory. Her cold, unfeeling grandparents. Her terrible friends. And him - a dead mother and a deadbeat Dad. No brothers or sisters. Just the two of them. She'd thought of him as family once. Before Lou - back when scared, lonely little Alice Smith had no one except for the equally lonely boy next door.

"There's a place for you too, if you want it."

"Don't -" Her voice wavered. She closed her eyes, pressing her palm to her temple. "Just don't, okay?"

FP just looked at her. He didn't say anything but his eyes said enough. 

She saw pity in his eyes, clear as day. She wanted to slap that look off his face, spit out the nastiest things she could think of until he wasn't looking at her like that. But she knew - and it was all that stopped her from doing something she'd regret - that if she was anyone else, he would've asked her who she thought she was kidding. She wasn't a Northsider, never would be. If she had a legacy, it wasn't to go to college like most kids and have the house with the white picket fence and 2.5 kids. It was to be a Serpent just like her old man and his before him. 

For girls who were born in trailer parks, who had Daddies in prison, who spent their childhood with lowlives, a place with the Serpents was the best they were ever going to get. If Alice was lucky, they'd let her join, let her be one of them. If not, she'd be like that girl who had been hanging off of FP's arm, banking everything on snagging a man to keep her and a roof over her head. She didn't want to be that girl. Her mother had been that girl once and look where that had gotten her. Alice wanted more. She wanted to stand on her own two feet and not rely on anyone for anything. She wanted to be free, not shackled to the sinking ship that was this godforsaken town.

"Come inside, Allie." FP said with a weary edge to his tone, crushing the butt of his cigarette into the concrete. 

She started to shake her head but he surprised her. He reached out and clasped her shoulder, catching her off-guard. She could feel the warmth of his hand even through her cardigan.

"Have a drink with me." It wasn't a question, but it was a near thing. "C'mon, Alice." His voice gentler than before, softer than she'd heard it in a long time.

"They - they won't serve me." It wasn't the best excuse, but it was all she could think of. 

FP's lips twitched, almost a smile. "Yeah, they will. You're family."

Alice shook her head that time. It was a  _school night_. She wasn't going to get drunk with a bunch of bikers in a dingy bar. She wasn't that girl.

"I'll see you at school." She said, already turning away. She didn't know if it was true or not. What did a Southside Serpent need a high school education for? FP didn't say anything. She hadn't really expected him to. Still, she found herself walking slowly, half expecting, half hoping he would rush after her.

She was halfway across the parking lot when FP called after her.

"Never gonna let that hair of yours down, huh?"

She looked back in spite of herself, bristling. He was grinning like he'd said something funny but it was too wide, showed too many teeth. And it didn't reach his eyes. He stood, shoulders hunched, leaning against the wall, already pulling out another cigarette. She thought for a minute that he might say something else but he never did. He just kept staring at her with a liar's smile and eyes that said too much.

Alice kept walking.

 

* * *

 

Maybe it was what FP said. Maybe it was the things Penelope and the other girls whispered about her in the halls. Maybe it was Hermione, parading around in her Vixen uniform. Maybe it was the way that sometimes she felt like a stranger inside her own skin. Or maybe the last straw was when she got her first B in three years and her grandmother looked at her like she didn't know who she was anymore.

Her grandfather had been calling her by her mother's name for years. He was old; he didn't know what year it was, barely knew anything about what went on around him. Her grandmother though - when she looked at her like that, Alice knew what she was seeing.

Whatever it was, all Alice knew was that she couldn't keep going. 

Furious, and out of spite, she'd sworn to herself she would be exactly what Penelope and those other girls thought she was. Southside trash. She'd stopped trying to be their friend, she wore clothes that felt more like her than Hermione's hand-me-downs, and she'd told herself she didn't care what they thought of her. But she was still pretending. Each day, she was still screaming on the inside. 

If she stayed on the same path, she was going to lose her fucking mind. Something had to change.

 _She_ had to change. 

 

* * *

 

Alice stared at herself in the mirror, head cocked to one side, trying to work out what the hell she was doing.

She looked like one of those girls she had always thought she was so much better than; her hair was loose and messy and she was wearing what was supposed to be her Halloween costume. Hermione was Cher and she was going to be Madonna. And that was what it felt like. A costume. She didn't know who she was in her ripped black jeans and lace crop top. 

"Damn, girl." Mary said from behind her. "You look  _hot."_

"You think?"

Alice looked herself over again, worrying her lower lip with her teeth. She had her grandmother's voice in her ear, calling her a whore like her mother.

"Totally!" Mary clambered off of the bed, coming to stand next to her. Mary looked like, well,  _Mary_ in her black dress and bubblegum pink tights. Mary grabbed her jacket from where it was hanging on the corner of the mirror and tossed it at her. Mary, who had never doubted herself for a second, looked herself over in the mirror and grinned. "We both look amazing. So hurry up or we're gonna be late."

"I don't think you can be late to a party, Mary." Alice muttered, tugging her jacket on as she followed her out of the door.

They drove in Mary's father's car. He handed over the keys over without hesitation, kissing Mary on the cheek before she left.

"He trusts me. Knows I'm not going to do anything stupid." Mary said in response to her unasked question as they walked down the driveway, both unsteady on heels they couldn't walk properly in. Alice hummed, a dark, twisted little part of her that she never could completely bury wondered what that felt like, and resented Mary a little for it. A father who loved her, trusted her. A father who was there. Alice had no idea what that was like.

Fred Andrews' house was nice. It wasn't in the poshest part of town like Hermione's place, or in picture-perfect suburbia like Mary's, but it was nicer than any place Alice had ever lived in. The party was just starting up when they pulled up, they were the first to arrive. Fred was still setting up chips and drinks in the kitchen.

"Oh, hey guys. Glad you made it." Fred smiled when he saw them, more polite than anything. While Mary smiled at him more than any other boy at their school, Fred didn't seem to notice. 

Mary grinned, skipping over to talk to him while Alice hung back, taking in the house. She trailed her fingers over Fred's record player, the stack of old vinyls next to it, and squinted at the names, not recognising any of them. She fiddled with her necklaces, listening to Mary and Fred talk in the kitchen. She'd never been to a party before. Not really. School dances and church club and sleepovers at Hermione's didn't count.

Eventually, when other people started arriving and Fred had to play the dutiful host, Mary hurried back to her side. Alice breathed a sigh of relief when she saw her, stepping out of the corner she'd awkwardly secluded herself in.

"Freddy says FP is bringing booze." Mary snorted. "Isn't that wild?"

Alice's brows lifted. "FP's coming?"

"Yeah. 'Course. Didn't you know that?" Mary was too kind to point out the obvious. That FP was the only reason she'd agreed to come. 

She hadn't seen him at school. She hadn't seen him around the Southside. She hadn't seen him at all since she saw him at the Wyrm. But Fred Andrews was his friend, there was no way he'd throw a party and FP not make an appearance.

Alice was in the living room when he arrived, teetering unsteadily on her heels, already a few drinks past tipsy. Some Bulldogs player she couldn't remember the name of had shown up with beer and a bottle of vodka and pushed shot after shot into her hands. 

Mary had taken a beer and sipped it without any real interest, listening half-heartedly to whatever the Bulldogs player was saying, never leaving Alice's side for a second. She'd never drank anything more than cheap beer and watered down communion wine and Mary knew that. Throwing back shots helped chase away her nerves, pushed her worries and insecurities to the back of her mind. It helped her let loose,  _let her hair down,_ for the first time in a long, long time.

She didn't notice right away when the front door opened nor when Fred loudly examined that the party had arrived. She was dancing to a song she didn't know with Mary, arms wrapped around the shorter girl's shoulders, giggling as they tried to sing along to the music. The Bulldogs player had moved on, was talking to some other girl.

She only realised FP was there when she felt a familiar tingling on the back of her neck. 

Alice looked over her shoulder and found herself smiling when she caught sight of him. He was wearing that stupid jacket again and his hair slicked back in the way he thought looked cool but she didn't care. She was happy to see him. FP nodded at her, his lips twitching in the faintest of smirks, before he clasped Fred's hand and clapped him on the back. The two disappeared into the kitchen and Alice went back to dancing. 

Later, when Alice was dancing with Toby from her math class, his arm slung low around her waist, she caught sight of him again. He was with Fred, nursing a beer, talking to some girl. He looked over, as if sensing her gaze, and tipped his beer in her direction. She thought he might come over to talk to her. He didn't. She swallowed her disappointment and downed another shot.

Alice had never been that girl. Having control over her own life was something she had never had growing up. She had no control over her father getting locked up, or her mother getting high, or bringing the wrong men into their lives, or her grandparents kicking them out. She had no control over what side of town she was born or what people thought about her. Control was something she clung to, something she didn't let go of for one second. She didn't go to parties, she didn't drink, she certainly didn't pine over the attention - or lack thereof - from boys like FP. But it felt good to let go, to lose control, and be  _that girl._

Toby kissed her later and she let him. 

They were sat on the couch, her heels kicked off, her eyelids heavy. She wasn't aware of much at that point. She felt like she was melting into the soft cushioned back of the sofa. Toby had been trying to impress her by talking about some documentary he'd watched but she'd stopped listening. The room was spinning and Toby had his arm around her and there was something hesitant - uncertain - about the way he leaned in and pressed his lips against hers. It didn't startled her like it would've if she were sober. 

She hadn't kissed many boys. Just FP and a couple of boys from church. She didn't know what to do when his tongue suddenly pushed against her closed lips. She broke away to laugh, snorting loudly right in his face. She didn't feel as bad as she should've when she laughed even harder at the sight of his red cheeks and ears. Toby said something, looking mad, but she couldn't hear him over the music and her own laughter.

"Alright, Alice. I think it's time for us to head home." Mary said, appearing from nowhere. Alice cooed her name, happy to see her, and Mary smiled at her the way she'd smile at a cute animal. She leaned over Alice, gently pushing her tangled hair away from her face. Her sweet smile dimmed at something she saw and with her brows drawing together, she called over her shoulder. "Freddy, can you help me get her up?"

"I got her."

Alice barely registered FP's voice before the world suddenly shifted and she found herself staring at the back of FP's jacket. FP paused, tensing up, probably expecting her to scream bloody murder at being slung over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. But Alice only giggled, tracing the sewn patches on his jacket with the tips of her fingers. The arm wrapped around the backs of her legs didn't let up but the tension in his shoulders lifted.

"Jesus, how much did she drink?" She was vaguely aware of FP saying as he carried her out of the house.

"I don't know... She had a couple of shots - I think -" She thought she heard Mary saying, following along behind them. "What am I going to do? I can't bring her in like this, my parents will kill me..."

"I'll get her home."

"But her grandparents -"

"They think she's sleepin' at yours right? Then I guess she can crash at mine, wouldn't be the first time." If she was sober, she would've been furious. For Mary to know - to even  _suspect -_ that she had ever spent the night at FP Jones' house, and all connotations that entailed... A more sober Alice would've wanted the ground to swallow her up to avoid the embarrassment. But as it was, Alice just pressed her face into FP's jacket, her eyelids growing heavier by the second.

 "I don't know..." Mary said and FP paused, the sudden stop jolting her, waking her up a little. 

"What? You think I'm gonna try something?" His voice was harsher, harder than before. The arm around her legs tightened to the point that she couldn't really feel her toes anymore. Alice grumbled into his jacket but no one seemed to notice. "That's what you think of me, huh?"

"That's not fair." Mary protested, sounding upset. "I'm just looking out for her, trying to be a good friend -"

FP laughed once, a hard, humourless sound. "This is probably news to you, Mary, but me and Allie have been friends for a real long time. I'd never do anything to hurt her. I'm the last person you gotta be worried about."

Alice's hand tightened around the bottom of his jacket, the sound of their voices fading out. The world dimmed as she lost the fight to her eyelids, the noise of the party fading away. The last thing she was aware of was the brush of warm, calloused fingers against the back of her leg before it all went black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> omgg i am so so sorry for the long wait! real life got crazy busy but i should be back to a more regular posting schedule again. 
> 
> i had to type this all up on my phone because my laptop broke so if there's any mistakes i am so sorry, my proofreading skills seriously leave a lot to be desired.
> 
> the chapter title is from the song 'lovely' by billie eilish and khalid. it's such a sad, beautiful song. it really sums up what poor alice is going through.


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